The President's $40 Million Inaugural Ball

Is this new debate an attack from the liberal media to question Bush and challenge everything he does? Is the Inaugural theme of "Celebrating Freedom, Honoring Service" a worthy response to the expense? I suppose you could ask one of the soldier's who was invited. It's one thing to question the frivolity of the Inaugural Ball when 210,000 lives have been lost and a costly war is taking place. It's another thing to completely ignore the fact that the Inaugural Ball has been going on for over 200 years and that Republicans and Democrats both participate when it's their turn. In fact, the former President Bill Clinton had two of his own. One that cost about 33 million and another that was just shy of 30 million.

Can we assume Kerry would have done things differently if he were president now? I guess we can all safely answer affirmative to that. We probably wouldn't be at war in Iraq (or we would have, then we wouldn't have, then we would have but not really), Saddam would still be wreaking havoc in the lives of the Iraqi people, we would be encouraged with the scam-ridden results of the United Nations - promoting their oil-for-food plan, and ultimately the world would be worse off but Democrats could have their party...guilt free.

Still, I think the idea of throwing an extravagant party at a time like this is pretty poor taste. Not only does it give the media world more ammunition to bash Bush, but it reveals a little too obviously that rich Americans will be rich Americans regardless of the state of the world. That goes for individuals in both political parties. "The love of money is the root of all evil", and it's times like this which reveal how much we Americans abhor that verse. I say, cancel the ball and send the money to World Vision (not the UN). At the same time, the rest of the world and each individual should be looking for ways to live more frugally and give more freely.